Lou Ann Barton - Stop These Teardrops

This is one of the "good" ones! A real good one!

And yes, It's been on CD so it has been digitized at some point. But sadly, it's out of print. So enjoy!

This is a vinyl rip from a promotional copy.

(Rolling Stone Review - 1981)
In the South, where her exploits are legend, Texas born and bred Lou Ann Barton is known as a tough-talking, hard-drinking sweetheart of a singer who can quiet a rowdy house with a tender country ballad or shake the foundations with a raucous blues rocker. Her attitude – expressed in the bold swagger of her sharply accented, whiskey-with-beer-for-a-chaser voice–recalls several of the most influential female singers in rock & roll, R&B and country music: Irma Thomas, Arlene Smith, Tina Turner, Wanda Jackson, Patsy Cline and others.

While these qualities may make for great art, they don't exactly sell many records in today's market. Producers Jerry Wexler and Glenn Frey realized the problem and, instead of documenting one of Barton's honky-tonk sets, they skillfully revised her repertoire, adding several contemporary songs stylistically rooted in the eras to which she relates. Wexler then ensured sympathetic musical support by recording at Muscle Shoals. The result is the most audacious album debut of this young year.

Old Enough is a mixture of tunes, old and new, couched in a hot, uncluttered production. The focus is always on the singing, though the musicians have ample room to express themselves. Like Aretha Franklin, Lou Ann Barton is an interpretive artist with an extraordinary understanding of a lyric's multilayered meanings. She can project a compelling viewpoint by emphasizing, lingering over or throwing away a line whenever she feels like it.

Handclaps and a robust guitar ostinato kick off Marshall Crenshaw's "Brand New Lover." The band purrs along until the chorus, when a tempo change and some background vocals lift the number onto a more intense emotional plane. At song's end, Barton engages in a passionate call-and-response, crying out "There isn't any other" as her backup singers declaim "Need a brand new lover" over and over.

From this plateau, Barton glides into Naomi Neville's (the nom de plume of Allen Toussaint) "It's Raining," with Al Garth's searing, plaintive sax solo providing a dramatic counterpoint to the star's morose vocals. Though the feeling of standing on sanity's edge after losing a lover is inherent in "It's Raining," Barton fights back by wailing "I wish it would stop."

"It Ain't Right," "Finger Poppin' Time" and "Every Night of the Week" are rollicking, good-time compositions fueled by outstanding instrumental work as well as terrific singing. In fact, "It Ain't Right" only starts to soar with the introduction of Duncan Cameron's sinewy, serpentine guitar playing. Likewise, the "real good time" Barton sings about in "Finger Poppin' Time" is largely inspired by Greg Piccolo's hilarious tenor saxophone burps.

Lou Ann Barton's best moment occurs in "Maybe," a tune that's been done right just once before, in its original version by Arlene Smith and the Chantels. But Barton knows how to handle it, and Wexler and Frey wisely let her take center stage, without even a short solo to interrupt. At the beginning, she sounds like a little girl hoping that perhaps her one true passion can be reclaimed. Her rendering of the lines "May-ay-be/If I hold your hand/You will understand" is unrealistically optimistic. But as the number progresses, the artist grows up, stares destiny in the face and refuses to be defeated. The smooth, naive phrasing of the word maybe gives way to a harsh near-scream, almost as if Barton were mocking the innocence displayed in the first two verses. This kind of drama and insight is the result of moving far beyond the lyric sheet and searching elsewhere for the heart of a song – something all great singers do as a matter of course.

Old Enough is one of Jerry Wexler's finest achievements as a producer, as well as an impressive production debut for Glenn Frey. For Lou Ann Barton, the accolades are as well deserved as her future is bright. (RS 366)

DAVID MCGEE

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